A Spectator's Notebook
AFTER TAKING another look at the report of the 1926 Com- mittee of Inquiry into the Lane Bequest, 1 am more than ever convinced that Dublin has been shabbily treated. This Com- mittee agreed—as it could hardly help doing—that Lane Wanted to leave the pictures to Dublin, if Dublin provided a gallery. But he sailed on the Lusitania without getting the codicil witnessed, so that legally the pictures remained London's. In international, as distinct from personal, affairs, Lane's wishes should have been enough. But the 1926 Committee was also asked to consider whether legislative action would be needed to carry out those wishes; and very Properly (though pompously) it decided, no, on the sensible grounds that to overturn a private will in the name of public equity might be a bad precedent. At the time, this decision was misinterpreted to mean a rejection of the Irish claim, which of course it was not. The Committee was saying, in effect, that the return of the paintings ought to be a voluntary, not a statutory, act. Unfortunately things have happened since 1915 which make the return more difficult. But. this is no excuse for London's present dog-in-the-manger attitude, whereby many of these fine pictures are kept in the Tate's cellars. Surely if the authorities now got together, they could hammer out some settlement satisfactory to both cities.
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